UAE Central Bank raises base rate to 3.9% after US Fed rate hike

CBUAE lifts its base rate by 25 basis points to 3.9%, effective September 17

Last updated:
1 MIN READ
UAE-oney-dirham20
Gulf News Archive

Dubai: The UAE Central Bank has raised its base rate by 25 basis points to 3.9%, following a similar increase by the US Federal Reserve.

The Central Bank of the UAE said on Wednesday that the Base Rate applicable to its Overnight Deposit Facility will increase from 3.65% to 3.9%, effective Thursday, September 17.

The decision follows the US Federal Reserve’s announcement on September 16 to raise the Interest Rate on Reserve Balances by 25 basis points.

UAE rate tracks US Fed benchmark

The CBUAE Base Rate is anchored to the Federal Reserve’s Interest Rate on Reserve Balances and signals the general stance of monetary policy in the UAE.

It also provides an effective floor for overnight money market interest rates in the country.

The UAE dirham’s peg to the US dollar means the CBUAE’s base rate framework is linked to the Federal Reserve benchmark through the IORB.

Short-term borrowing rate maintained

The CBUAE also said it would maintain the interest rate applicable to short-term liquidity borrowed from the central bank at 50 basis points above the Base Rate across all standing credit facilities.

The decision means the Base Rate will stand at 3.9% from Thursday, compared with 3.65% previously.

Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

Sign up for the Daily Briefing

Get the latest news and updates straight to your inbox